


Again

by Calyps0



Category: The Blacklist (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Brain Damage, Controlling Behavior, F/M, Super angsty, memory erasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 18:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19178737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calyps0/pseuds/Calyps0
Summary: What if Red didn't manipulate Lizzie's memories of her past just one time?





	Again

Again.

Again.

She wakes up on a table, _again_. Blinks, fades, closes her eyes.

Forgets. Wakes up in her apartment, stiff muscles and sore head, her ears muffled cotton and her throat raspy and dry.

_Again._

This is the sixth—no, _eighth,_ time he’s done this to her. She’s only certain of the one time. She has a strong suspicion about all the others. But there’s no proof. No evidence. And it’s getting harder and harder to hold onto even an _inkling_  of what’s really going on. It feels like someone’s taken a whisk and given a beating to the inside of her head, turning her brain into scrambled eggs. She shakes the thought loose, imagining with a sloppy grin bright yellow yolk sloshing around inside her skull.

There’s a strange thought.

What was she trying to figure out, again?

Something to do with—

Oh.

Reddington.

Of course. It’s always him, isn’t it? She had wanted to ask him something, this morning, she thinks.

It was something important.

She’s sure of it.

But it’s like trying to catch air, gather dust particles swirling in a chink of light.

She had found out something, right? Something important…and then…

He’d acted strange. Odd. The lines around his lips tighter than usual. That happened, sometimes. Occasionally. Or…usually? She wasn’t quite sure. Things were always a little fuzzy—no—a little blurred around the edges. She should be concerned, but every time she thinks that _maybe_ she should look into it, something comes up. Or she’ll bring it up to _him_ and he’ll wave it away, and her suspicions will obey, flitting away like insects, gathering somewhere else, getting stuck in the yolk, their wings weighed down and sticky, bodies dyed like taxicabs.

She giggles. What a lurid image. Almost like—

What _was_ she thinking about?

_Focus, Lizzie._

_Focus._

The silliness fades, as it has the past eight times, in the routine of the day, in the rustle of paperwork and the push-pull of a case.

She’s sitting across a table from him, now, in the cool shade of a little Lithuanian restaurant he has pulled her into for a quick lunch. He’s so odd—one minute straining to spend every waking moment with her, his fingers aching to touch her, a hand in her hair, a tap on her knee—the next he’s aloof and pained, as if he has done something terrible and he’s being held up on stilts, his crimes almost too much for his very frame to bear. Some days he can barely stand to look at her. It hurts. She can’t figure out what she’s done wrong.

She feels pity twisting at her mouth, but then she remembers the strange fugue that has encompassed her days and her mood sours like discarded lemon rinds.

 _I’m angry at you_ , she decides to tell him. Turns her nose up decisively.

 _There_ , there it is again. Her eyes trace the lift of his eyebrows, the tug of his lips, the tightening of the lines around the corners of his mouth.  How much guilt does he bear? She thinks she’s had a lot to contend with in her short three decades of life, but surmises that just by the way he carries himself he’s got her beat by a substantial amount. Still, it would be so much easier if he would just come clean, stop—doing whatever it is she knows he’s doing to her. She shakes her head a bit and he stares at her.

 _Are you alright?_ He asks concernedly. _Do you need some more water?_

 _Don’t do that_ , she says. _Don’t deflect. I just said I’m angry at you. Don’t you care?_

 _Yes, I do_ , he says, grandly, as if the words carry so much more weight. As if the table between them weren’t creaky and lopsided, but a grand ballroom setting dashed with only finery. She glances at the torn paper menu and the water rim stain as he sighs, _I care a great deal. I never want you to be upset at me. Please, what are you angry about?_ He looks so hopeful, so contrite. She could almost believe that there is nothing fetid lying under the surface, hidden there between revolvers and silencers and memories with locks.

What is she angry about?

The way you make me feel, she wants to say. You’ve messed with my head and I feel all funny and backwards and upside-down and inside-out. Scrambled egg brains. And I know it’s your fault.

But he looks so small suddenly— all she gets out is an amused huff and an _I’m angry you haven’t told me the name of this dish._ She gestures smilingly to her plate, to the fragrant potato and spice meal he ordered for her. She’s barely taken two bites out of it. _It’s delicious,_ she tells him earnestly.

And she’s still upset, yes, but no more clear-headed for it, and isn’t it worth it to see the brightening of his eyes , the tightness leaving his mouth as he smiles at her and clinks his class to hers?

She never used to be this accommodating, this passive. But he is fragile these days, and she has the strangest urge to placate him, lest he break.

His chuckle reverberates now, in the middle of a story about how he first discovered this little _delicacy_ , as he proclaims it, pronouncing the ethnic dish’s name with astounding care.

She nods along animatedly, grateful, for the moment, at least, that he is happy.

Isn’t this enough?

\---

There’s a curious déjà vu following her days. She’s getting close, she knows. Close to finding out what it is he’s hiding, the truth of his bloodline, who he really is—and more importantly—who he is to _her_.

She’s succeeded in tracking down some long-lost contact of Katerina’s, some numbers that Tom has unwittingly left behind. She was certain there were others. There are pages torn out of this book, like she’s been here before. But she knows she hasn’t. She discovered this hiding place by accident. This is the first time she’s been here that she knows of. There is a notepad in her hand with a contact list. Some numbers are scratched out. Next to them are words: _deceased, incarcerated, dead end_ , written in her own handwriting. She doesn’t remember writing them. In the margins are her own initials and time-stamps. Various dates, times, but always the same initials, the same handwriting. _Hers._ She frowns. There are _dozens_.

There is a name at the bottom, one without a cross out or a hatch mark. She copies it down. Leaves a note in the margin of the page. _E.K. 12:03._

The contact doesn’t pan out. A little old man living in flat by himself. Used to belong to a gang until he sobered up. His house smelled of dish soap and his countertops were littered with photos of a toothy granddaughter.

She thanks him for his time and leaves. This is it, she knows. She’s gambling on her last hope. At the restaurant, she had had a startling moment of clarity. She filched a little silver dessert spoon from his place setting. They left, the utensil in her pocket damning and hopeful, all at once.

The test results arrive a full week later. The paperwork comes with a list of her other requests. Requests for analyses she doesn’t remember asking for.  The haze is dogging her like a cloud of flies. Her head hurts. The envelope looks inviting. This time there is no hesitation. With the feeling that she’s somehow been here before, she tears it open.

\---

She screams at him, hurls words like bullets, like fire, and they land. They hurt him as if they were real wounds, but she will not remember saying these things.

He will, though.

He always does.

\---

He is speaking, soft tones barely above a whisper. She feels like a truck has rammed into her head. She strains to listen.

_You can never leave well enough alone, sweetheart. So many times. It pains me to do this to you, each and every time I feel it like a little piece of my heart. Can’t you stop, please? Stop, okay? It’ll be better for you, this way. It’ll hurt less._

These words don’t make sense. Nothing does. She digs around in her head and something’s missing, a word that was just on the tip of her tongue. She was onto something, she had discovered something. But, like a puff of air, it is gone, as if it had never been. It is frustrating, but only for a moment. She closes her eyes and sleeps.

\---

When she wakes she knows—he’s done it, again. He’s sitting by her bed and the table beneath her back is hard. But it won’t be when she awakens again. She'll be in her bed again. It’ll be soft and warm. He won’t be there. He never is. But they’re both here, now. _Aha_ , she thinks vaguely.  _I’ve got you, Buster_. Ha. Wouldn’t that be funny? Buster Reddington, not Raymond.

Raymond. Raaaaymond. Ray of sunshine. Ray of light.

 _Raymond_ , she singsongs his name and the crease above his eyebrow deepens into an almost inconsolable look.

But why would it pain him to hear his own name? He’s so confusing. She laughs, taken suddenly by a fit of vivid bubbling giggles.

 _Raymond,_ she titters, and she tells him, _the eggs are scrambling in my head again._

_\---_

She’s been back in her apartment a week now, from this last instance. The haze envelops her, now, so all-encompassing it is all she can do to catch her errant thoughts, shepherd them like stray lambs. She doesn’t feel like a shepherd, though. She feels like the small, helpless creature seeking guidance, seeking a home, seeking belonging from anyone willing to provide it.

She remembers being back there, in that place, the last time. His face above hers, looking so pained, is the last thing she sees. Why does he always look like that? She stretches out a hand to smooth the creases from his brow but can barely lift her arm from her side. Why should he look so sad? She feels like floating. Like giggling. It’s a fun feeling. It’s freeing. She’d like him to feel it, too.

But he looks in no mood for laughing. She blinks and he is crying, fine tears making their way down his cheek. She closes her eyes and drifts off lightly. When she swims back into consciousness, he is whispering so softly his words are more liquid than sound.

_Thirty-four times, Lizzie. I don’t know how much more I can take._

He winces when she grins, dopey smile wide and uninhibited. He catches the hand that is struggling to reach out to him and clasps the fingers around his cheek.

 _I feel funny,_ she whispers, like a child’s secret, too-close breath hot on his ear.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, the hand around her fingers squeezes just a little tighter.

_Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ll take care of you._

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah. This was pretty dark. But the idea wouldn't let me go, sorry!
> 
> Let me know what you think!


End file.
